The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: How Risk Taking Transforms Us, Body and Mind

by John Coates

Overview

“Brilliant.” —David Brooks, The New York Times

“A profoundly unconventional book . . . So absorbing that I wound up reading it twice.” —Bloomberg

Finalist for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year

What happens to your body when you take risks? What happens to it when you make or lose a lot of money? 

In this startling book, physiologist and former Wall Street trader John Coates vividly illustrates what happens to your body when you engage in risk taking. You transform into a different person, a change Coates refers to as "the hour between dog and wolf." He tells a gripping story of a group of traders caught in a bull market and then a crash. As the excitement builds he takes us inside the traders' bodies to see the biology of risk taking at work, a biology shared by athletes, politicians, soldiers - anyone who ventures beyond their safety zone.

Coates also discusses how men and women excel at different types of risk; how the stress of failure damages our health; and how we can train our bodies so that they help rather than hinder our risk taking. Revealing the biology behind bubbles and crashes, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf sheds new and surprising light on issues that affect us all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143123408
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/24/2013
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

John Coates, Research Fellow in neuroscience and finance at the University of Cambridge, previously traded derivatives for Goldman Sachs, and ran a trading desk for Deutsche Bank. He now researches the biology of risk taking and stress. His book, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, was shortlisted for the FT-Goldman Business Book of the Year, and the UK Wellcome Trust Science Prize. It was also chosen as book of the month by the British Army. His research on risk taking has attracted interest from business, medicine, and the military, as well as elite sports teams.

Table of Contents

Part I Mind and Body Inthe Financial Markets

Introduction 3

1 The Biology of a Market Bubble 15

2 Thinking with Your Body 38

Part II Gut Thinking

3 The Speed of Thought 57

4 Gut Feelings 89

Part III Seasons of the Market

5 The Thrill of the Search 129

6 The Fuel of Exuberance 161

7 The Stress Response on Wall Street 198

Part IV Resilience

8 Toughness 237

9 From Molecule to Market 266

Acknowledgments 281

Notes 283

Annotated Further Reading 327

Index 333

What People are Saying About This

Gilbert Taylor

Coates' contribution to the high-interest topic of decision-making—the arena of popular titles by Jonah Lehrer (How We Decide, 2009) and Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2011)—hails from the realm of investment banking. A former financial trader, Coates combines his real-world experience and his clinical study of human physiology into a story of Wall Street speculators in action. Setting them as fictional characters in a bull market that turns into a bear, Coates constructs a perspective on financial bubbles in which the human endocrine and nervous systems are the central although unconscious actors. As his traders scan their screens, Coates dramatizes surges of hormones and firings of neurons as the traders place bets, comparing the traders' bodily sensations to those of athletes in competition and soldiers in combat. When crashing securities crush irrational exuberance, Coates reaches back to evolutionary biology to describe the flight-or-fight stressors besetting his traders. A provocative challenger to rational choice views of high finance, Coates makes an exceptionally clear, readable presentation that is bound to influence arguments about the regulation of Wall Street.-- Gilbert Taylor

From the Publisher

Financial Times Best Books of 2012 – Science
Foreign Policy Must Read 2012 Books from Global Thinkers

“A profoundly unconventional book… It’s also so absorbing that I wound up reading it twice… From the first page to the last, Coates challenges deep-seated assumptions.”—Bloomberg Businessweek

“If anyone is qualified to unify the seemingly disparate subjects of financial markets and neurology, it’s John Coates…The Hour Between Dog and Wolf is a powerful distillation of his work—and an important step in the ongoing struggle to free economics from rational-actor theory.”—The Daily Beast

“[I]t makes intuitive sense that biological responses inform the mood of the markets. This book puts flesh on that idea.”—The Economist

“Compelling.”—New Scientist

“[A] scintillating treatise on the neurobiology of the business cycle. Coates… draws an intimate portrait of life on a trading floor …The result is a provocative and entertaining take on the irrational exuberance—and anxiety—of the modern economy.”—Publishers Weekly

“A provocative challenger to rational choice views of high finance, Coates makes an exceptionally clear, readable presentation that is bound to influence arguments about the regulation of Wall Street.”—Booklist

“An in-depth look at how financial risk-taking is linked to human biology, especially to the testosterone levels of young male traders, and the implications of this phenomenon for financial markets and the wider economy.”—Kirkus

Editorial Reviews

A profoundly unconventional book… It’s also so absorbing that I wound up reading it twice… From the first page to the last, Coates challenges deep-seated assumptions.”—Bloomberg

“If anyone is qualified to unify the seemingly disparate subjects of financial markets and neurology, it’s John Coates…The Hour Between Dog and Wolf is a powerful distillation of his work—and an important step in the ongoing struggle to free economics from rational-actor theory.”—The Daily Beast

“[I]t makes intuitive sense that biological responses inform the mood of the markets. This book puts flesh on that idea.”—The Economist

“Compelling.”—New Scientist

“[A] scintillating treatise on the neurobiology of the business cycle. Coates… draws an intimate portrait of life on a trading floor …The result is a provocative and entertaining take on the irrational exuberance—and anxiety—of the modern economy.”—Publishers Weekly

“A provocative challenger to rational choice views of high finance, Coates makes an exceptionally clear, readable presentation that is bound to influence arguments about the regulation of Wall Street.”—Booklist

“An in-depth look at how financial risk-taking is linked to human biology, especially to the testosterone levels of young male traders, and the implications of this phenomenon for financial markets and the wider economy.”—Kirkus

From the Publisher